10 local acts that Portland’s music insiders think you should hear.

Making a good first impression is not a high priority for
the We Shared Milk. The photograph at the top of the group’s Facebook
page is not a well-manicured press shot. Instead, it features a candid
image of frontman Boone Howard on the street, spewing a stream of
cherry-red liquid out of his mouth and onto the pavement.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://thewesharedmilk.bandcamp.com/album/lame-sunset"&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Lame Sunset by The We Shared Milk&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

“The
backstage food at Treefort Fest in Boise had borscht and carrot
smoothies,” Howard explains. “We thought it would be funny to puke
bright colors for a promo.”

It’s telling of a
band that refers to its music as “moron rock.” Not to say the
quartet—three parts Alaskan, one part native Oregonian—dumbs down its
woozy brand of psych pop. It just prefers to keep things simple. On Lame Sunset,
the band’s second album in less than seven months, the group took a
more direct approach with its songwriting than last year’s History of Voyager and Legend Tripping.

“I focused on not
thinking about it,” Howard says. “I tried to be relatable and simple in
the lyrics—something different than I usually do, which is stuff that
sounds nice together but doesn’t necessarily convey what I’m talking
about. It’s a little more blunt.”

The
album’s 10 songs don’t punch the listener in the gut but casually flow,
interweaving remnants of the group’s previous work with a hazy shade of
melancholia. Howard’s woolly, distorted guitar glints and glides above
drummer Eric Ambrosius and bassist Travis Leipzig’s syncopated rhythms,
while multi-instrumentalist Henry Gibson lays down a mix of keyboards
that anchors the band’s dazed crawl.

For a band that self-releases its albums, the We Shared Milk is big on collaboration: History of Voyager
featured production from 10 different Portland artists, and it recently
recorded a collaborative single and went on tour with its friends in
And And And, the Best New Band of 2010.

“I
think we vibe with those guys really well,” mutters Howard. “I guess
we’re all just a bunch of party boys.” As the streets of Boise are
already well aware. BRANDON WIDDER.